GPY&R Sydney has been appointed by former U.S. VP Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project on a global campaign that puts pressure on world leaders, through their citizens, to commit to meaningful carbon emission reductions.

Led by Andrew Dowling, Lucielle Vardy, newly appointed executive creative directors Bart Pawlak and David Joubert, and Y&R New York's David Sharrod, the GPY&R Sydney team presented the campaign to Mr. Gore and his team at The Climate Reality Project, as well as the Climate Change and Communications Groups at the United Nations.

The process, under the direction of WPP group planning director Jon
Steel and worldwide creative director John O'Keeffe, invited five WPP
agencies from all over the globe to present their response to the brief.

The
successful campaign created by GPY&R and the WPP agencies is
activated in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Philippines, South
Africa and the USA. It urges people to ask their leaders two important
questions to make a positive difference for the future of the planet:
'Why?' and 'Why Not?'

Says Dowling: "In any language across the world, children
ask why and why not from a very young age, over and over again. They
ask the first to try to understand the world, and the second when they
want to change that world.

"We want people of all ages to
continue to ask these questions of their elected representatives to help
highlight the problem in the current approach to climate change, and
the future solutions we should be sanctioning now."

Full-service public
relations agency PPR Australia has been appointed as the lead agency to
support the global launch and rollout of the campaign.

Says Richard
Lazar, managing director of PPR: "This campaign is hard-hitting
and emotive and we're really excited to have been asked to manage this
global activation and launch from Australia. In line with the digital
focus of the wider communications campaign, we'll be using our new
unique video distribution platform, Point Shoot Send (PSS), to
distribute the campaign launch content, featuring Mr. Gore, to the
global media."

The campaign is a cohesive, multidisciplinary
effort, delivered by eight individual WPP agencies and affiliates from
different geographies and disciplines (strategic planning, advertising,
media investment management, digital communications, public relations
& public affairs and youth marketing) supporting the launch and
rollout of the campaign. The agencies are: GPY&R Sydney; JWT; Maxus;
The Futures Company; PPR Australia; The Glover Park Group; Blue State
Digital; and affiliate company VICE.

Says Jon Steel, group planning director at WPP: "We are delighted to be able to work with Mr. Gore
in addressing the most important issue facing our planet. Our aim is to
frame the problem in a simple, personal way, and to convince people
that we cannot leave this to future generations to solve. Climate change
is already affecting millions of people, and I, for one, don't ever
want to look my children and grandchildren in the eye and admit that I
knew, and did nothing. Unlike most previous campaigns, ours has an
optimistic tone. The majority of people want to solve this problem, but
don't know how. The 'Why Not?' part of our campaign suggests how it can
be done."

The creative will appear digitally in Australia,
Brazil, India, Philippines, South Africa and the USA; with some
executions tailored to individual nations.

The campaign invites
children from around the world to represent their generation in a video.
The creators of the six best submissions will be flown to New York to
attend the Climate Summit on 23rd September and be part of a multimedia
presentation to world leaders calling for action and ambition on climate
change.

Says Joubert: "We wanted to give the younger generation a voice in
this debate. It will be our children and grandchildren who will see the
most extreme effects of our leaders' inaction on climate change, yet
they have no voice in the legislative process and the most to lose if we
do not act quickly and decisively."

The campaign will continue to build momentum leading up
to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's 21st
Conference of the Parties in Paris in December 2015, with the aim of
creating overwhelming public support for a global agreement on
greenhouse gas reductions and climate action.

Says Pawlak: "It's not every day
you come to work and present to the likes of former U.S. Vice President
Al Gore about a campaign that can make a real difference in the world.
To say we are excited is an understatement."

6 Comments

Erasmus said:

Al Gore? Really? The bloke who has made himself a billionaire spreading the global warming gospel but has a bigger personal CO2 footprint than some small countries? The man who stood up next to Clive Palmer and showed he was clueless? The man who made millions selling his cable channel to a company owned by a massive oil producing country? Great client. Great man to follow. What a joke.

Solutions to climate change would add trillions to global GDP The sun and wind are free.

The fossil fuel companies, however, with their billion dollar disinfo campaign and bought pols, have their conservative minions tied up into knots. And these marks will pay the price along with everyone else.

Well done! This is not the time to look at the negatives of the past. It is the time to learn from past ignorance and mistakes made to ensure that they do not re-occur and to take positive action to safeguard the future!